Hello to all... I am just beginning this course and can say I have already realized that I can gain new information and most certainly can improve the usage of social media as a departmental resource.
I must say that I, as well as my staff, use/ have used, social media as a way to both link with student graduates and to try to track those graduates that are difficult to communicate with after they have graduated. The social media sites most often used have been Linkedin and Facebook; resulting in moderate successes.
I am most definitely enthused to become more informed, via this coursework, and to improve our strategic approach to student/graduate engagement.
Happy Thanksgiving to All...
Hi Karina,
Excited to hear your enthusiasm for this topic. One of my favorite social media experts, Jay Baer, said people need to realize that social media has transformed to a skill. We don't think about it now but the telephone, fax machine, and computer were seen as simple "tools" when they were first introduced to us and they became skills when they became an integral part of our daily work environments. Using phone communication effectively to quickly develop rapport, sell products/services, and provide customer service are examples that we see all the time. Social media is now used in every-day business environments whether formal or informal and whether or not individuals are skilled or not. Thus, understanding the nuances of social media and having a different mindset that aligns with the culture of social communities, the expectations of users, and the communication styles/patterns of targeted audiences has now become a skill in its own right.
Robert Starks Jr.
We are currently learning about social media for our career services department. I completely agree with everything we just learned, we need to be come experts. This is going to be the new way that people engage with each other, and being that we are here to help people, we need to be able to build relationships with our graduates, personally and through social media.
Hi Shawn,
It's good that you are starting early! Many people dive into using social media accounts without clearly defined goals, strategies, or ideas of how to measure results. Additionally, there are often unrealistic expectations and many things overlooked and not considered. I recommend taking your time in the course and of course, ask questions as you have them. Many career services departments use social media for different things so there are a variety of ways you can use the tools to help you accomplish your goals - you just have to decide what those will be and strategize from there!
Robert Starks Jr.
Having just opened our Career Services Department at the College, we are currently exploring options for utilizing social media. Although the College itself utilizes a social media page, it would be helpful for Career Services to become more engaged with this type of media.
1. We have a CS facebook page used to share events, career resources and encourage student/grad accomplishments.
2. We train some grads/students to use social media to research and contact potential networking contacts/mentors.
3. We use social media for data mining.
Hi Daniel,
One of my experiences working with film students in particular was the challenge of helping students understand the value of a network like YouTube as a portfolio tool to show the world their work vs. a repository for ALL of their work. In other words, students loved sharing even if the work was not their best and this was a challenge for career services trying to help students put their best foot forward. Have you had these challenges? How do you manage them? Beyond showing work and building audience (subscribers, followers, etc.), for what other specific purposes are you encouraging students to use social media? What is your message to them, how is it delivered and....are they getting it?
Thanks for contributing to the discussion!
Robert Starks Jr.
As a film and television school, we have found that social media is an integral part to our student's success in reaching career objectives. We have realized that it is not enough for students to just explore one social media platform such as Youtube. We encourage and reinforce the use of as many as possible. There are everyday people on YouTube who understand this and have more subscribers than some of the large billion dollar corporations. This encourages students and gives them the outlet to display their work. Because in our field it is not enough to have a diploma, you have to demonstrate what you have done.
Hi Theresa,
Some people struggle with what type of Facebook account they decide to use. I'm curious, can you share the variables you considered that led you to choose a Facebook page vs. group or profile account? What goal(s) will you focus on having your Facebook page help you achieve for your department and why did you feel the Facebook platform was particularly strategic in your efforts?
Thanks for sharing.
Robert:
We just started an Facebook page for the school last year. Now we were thinking of hooking into Twitter. Since I now have some new ideas from this course, I can not wait to get started. I personally have just gotten a Linked In acct. Hopefully we will be able to built relationships with the students this new way of communicating. We do have past graduates that stop in from time to time and let us know what is going on with the MIA graduates. Love this new info!
we use social media as a tool to contact alumni who are not responsive and also to post job opportunities and event in the campus community. It is a great success
we use social media as a avenue to put out job leads as well as staing in contact and locating grads.
We also use social media to promote events on campus and it usually a great response.
Hello Kathryn,
Constant Contact has great software tools to manage your email and social campaigns - it's great your school has invested in this resource for you to use. I noticed you say you use social media to inform students of job openings and that it has been essential in helping graduates get placed. This raises 3 questions for me:
1. Does your use of social media differ in any ways from how you use email? Why or why not?
2. How have you been able to correlate success in graduate placement to your social media activities?
3. In what ways other than information dissemination can you possibly use social media to enhance your career center objectives according to the course?
Robert Starks Jr.
Social Media has played a big role for our career services department. It has been an essential element in helping our graduates get placed in there field of study.
We utilize the following social media sites: facebook, twitter, and constant contact.
For facebook and twitter, it has been a great way to inform our students (audience) of positions that have become available. It is a quick and easy way to get the word out there and also to communicate potential opportunities for job placement for our students.
Constant contact is a great way to inform companies about our graduates. A lot of times, these companies will communicate with us to post job openings for there company. This is a win win situation for the company and our students.
We use facebook to communicate with graduates. Some of our grads have created other pages that they link into ours so they can keep in contact with their classmates. I haven't really gotten into too many more things like Twitter and linkedin because I really don't know how to use them properly and we have to make sure it is in standards with what corporate wants.
Hi Linda,
I'm glad to have you as a course participant. This course is very focused on strategy and things to consider when implementing strategies using social tools to support achieving career services objectives. As you go through it, I encourage you to ask as many questions as you want and engage in dialogue to get the most out of it. I'm hear to help you any way I can and look forward to our interactions. Make sure to read through the forums - there have been many great discussions and I am confident you'll learn a great deal just from observing the dialogue of others.
Take care!
Robert Starks Jr.
As of yet, I use facebook as a tool for 'skip tracing' students. We also have a page dedicated to past alumni where I do consistent stories of our succesful students....I post the students picture, where they were before they came to us and how our program has changed their lives. I also have a personal linked in page, but have to admit that it is very underutilized. I am really interested in this class because I consider it a weak point in my career services tools.
Hi Jason,
The course differentiates social media from traditional communication channels. When considering these differences, although you use social media to "stay in contact" with graduates and cultivate your alumni network, one can also use a telephone or email for these purposes. With this context, could you describe how your strategies are uniquely different using social media vs. traditional channels of communication to stay in contact, cultivate your alumni network and communicate regarding employment? In other words, what has social media enabled you to do differently than traditional channels and how are you taking advantage of these differences? Might you reflect a bit on the differences in your strategies and share both what you are doing as well as why you are doing it considering the unique characteristics of social media tools?
Robert Starks Jr.
We use social media to stay in contact with graduates. it allows us to cultivate our alumni network as well as communicate wht them regarding employment
Aliza,
When you say your Facebook is targeting current students and alumni to help current students and alumni feel a part of the community, I am wondering if you can share your methodology for measuring the achievement of this goal. What are some key indicators for you that help you monitor your progress?
Robert Starks Jr.
